


Chill is a Virtue

by exbex



Series: You're My Favorite Journey [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Asexual Character, Developing Relationship, Fluff, Grey-A, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-08 22:44:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6877483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exbex/pseuds/exbex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And it was good, the slow build of what they’d been transitioning into, the way they’d yet to move beyond kissing and light touches, curling against one another in the dark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chill is a Virtue

**Author's Note:**

> Check Please! belongs to Ngozi Ukazu.

“What are you staring at?” Dex hadn’t even looked away from his laptop to ask the question, his tone deceptively casual.

Derek wanted to chirp him, but one look at his notes, on which he’d written Derek Malik Poindexter seven times, indicated that he had less than zero percent room to tease. The straightforward approach it was. “You. Obviously.”

“Are you doing it to be irritating?” There was no shift in Dex’s voice, no actual irritation to speak of. It was an opening if Derek had ever heard one.

“I can’t help it.”

“You can’t help but be annoying?”

“I can’t help staring at you because you’re beautiful.”

Dex snorted. “Yeah, you might want to get your eyes checked.” He still wasn’t looking at Derek, his eyes remaining fixed on his laptop screen. But there was a flush creeping up his neck and over his ears. There was no matching light in his eyes, the kind that would indicate pleasure at being complimented. Derek felt something twist inside of him.

But never let it be said that Derek Nurse wasn’t up for a challenge.

Derek was the same height as Dex, but slightly heavier and marginally stronger. But it was the element of surprise that really gave him the advantage as he sprang from the floor and tackled Dex, pleased at his ability to raise a noise of indignation and keep the laptop from crashing to the floor, even if it meant awkwardly balancing it until he could place it on the stand next to the bed. He rested his weight, chest to chest, his hands circling Dex’s wrists, pinning his arms to the mattress above his head. Derek waited for Dex to say something. One word and Derek would relent, try a different tactic. But Dex didn’t even shift beneath him, and Derek had known him long enough to know when there was tension in him, could read his body language on the ice, or walking next to him, could capture his mood by the brush of their shoulders or the feel of his pulse beneath his fingertips.

“If you’re trying to prove some kind of point, I’d save it if I were you; I know you’d fuck just about anyone.” But there was no malice or conviction in Dex’s tone, just a hint of a smirk on his face.

“Say it. Say it and maybe I’ll let you up.”

“Say what?” 

Derek couldn’t contain his grin with Dex so relaxed beneath him, Dex’s eyes soft and engaged and content.

“Say you’re beautiful.”

“Fine. You’re beautiful. You’re beautiful and you have a huge ego.”

Derek brushed his lips against Dex’s cheek, trailing kisses along his jaw, reveling in the shiver he produced. “Two words,” he whispered. “Two words and I’ll keep doing this.” He punctuated his statement by grazing Dex’s ear with his teeth.

Dex closed his eyes, his breath hitching. “You’re crazy; you could have anyone you want.”

Derek imagined his heart clenching; because this was Dex, actually allowing himself to be vulnerable, but it was also Dex, who was smart and strong and brave and loyal. And even if Derek was the only one on the planet who found him breath-taking, well, it wouldn’t be the first time that the majority had spectacularly missed a glaring truth. “Well, if I could have anyone I want, but I also would ‘fuck anyone,’ there must be something pretty special about you.”

Derek expected a sarcastic comment, or a shove, a laugh maybe, but Dex just opened his eyes and looked at Derek tentatively, as if he wanted to hear more but was afraid to ask. 

Derek’s breath hitched. “Made you blush.”

“It just looks that way because I have orange hair and skin the color of sour cream.”

“My lover’s hair is like the autumn leaves drifting along the freshly fallen snow, my lover’s eyes like pools of amber sealing years of secrets.”

Derek half-expected Dex to start chirping him, and when Dex pulled at the wrists that Derek still had in his grasp, Derek let him go, expecting to go back to the easy camaraderie of homework and chirps and talking about their upcoming game against Yale. And it was good, the slow build of what they’d been transitioning into, the way they’d yet to move beyond kissing and light touches, curling against one another in the dark. Derek knew that this was all new to Dex, that Dex fell somewhere in the grey area of the ace spectrum, that Dex had been surprised to find that he would ever want this with anyone. It was fine-more than fine, actually, because Dex was worth waiting for, worth more than anyone else Derek had ever known. 

Dex surprised him instead by threading his fingers through Derek’s hair, pulling him in for a kiss, tentative at first, then building in intensity.

Derek shifted, rolling to the side to let Dex take the lead. It was easy then, the same trust they’d found on the ice spilling over, the kisses slow and languorous. Derek ran his hands over the lean lines of Dex’s body, trying to convey all of his reassurances, everything he felt that he suddenly couldn’t find the words for. 

Time passed, marked by the way the light coming through the window shifted, and eventually Dex sighed as he pulled away slightly, even as he had one hand beneath the thin fabric of Derek’s t-shirt, resting on the smooth planes of his chest. “I’m not ready Nursey; I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Derek said, reaching for Dex’s shoulder and giving it a squeeze. He didn’t ever want Dex to feel as if he was less than enough, as if what he gave to Derek wasn’t filling a space that Derek hadn’t known was empty, as if Dex didn’t deserve to want, to need, to ask.

“I keep making you wait though.”

“William J. Poindexter, one of these days I’m going to look back on this time I spent waiting for you and I’m going to remember how I savored every moment.”

Dex laughed, “You’re a sap Nursey,” but there was no derision, just a smile that reached all the way to his eyes. 

“You love it though.”

Dex just gave him a look of fond exasperation. “This homework isn’t going to finish itself.” He rolled to his back and gave Derek a nudge with his shoulder that may have meant to be chiding, but the way he let it linger belied any possible scolding. Derek had a dozen other sentiments stirring beneath the surface, but they could wait. They’d be sweeter for it too.


End file.
